With barely a month left of the year………….there’s still time to achieve last minute goals!

Now what are they?

That’s the 64 million dollar question!

Technically you could say anything. But backtrack a second, “barely a month left” and “last minute goals”. Notice I didn’t say goals without an attached time limit?

Why is this important?

Deadlines

Deadlines = an opponent.

Your opposition is the hands on the clock, you’ll know that if you don’t act, time will act as it always does.

On the reverse………..if we don’t get so specific, we’d be encouraged to think too broad. Now that’s not to say never think broad, I totally believe the sky is the limit and nobody has the right to place a boundary or ceiling on anyone’s potential.

We really don’t know what we’re truly capable of! 

That’s what’s so brilliant about life, when we achieve targets and goals we once deemed too out of reach, not quite visible and a climb a little too steep.

Some broad goals may be:

-Squat 405 lbs one day

-Be 6% body fat one day

-Have a 40 inch vertical jump one day

Or on the career/lifestyle side of things:

-Pursue your dream of becoming a teacher one day

-Enrol on that university course you’ve been contemplating for years, one day

‘One day’

Now that day may never come. Are you expecting it to just happen? When? Where? How?

Specificity.

Once you nail down the specifics, you can create the gameplan.

Applying specificity to maximise the precious time left this year –

The reason for me raising awareness of the limited time remaining this year, wasn’t to generate thoughts as such: “This year’s over, on to next year!” or “Oh damn, how can I possibly achieve anything of note in such a short time?!”

But more…….“What can I do that I haven’t already, that’s very much attainable in four weeks or so?”

“What can I use as a driving force to pull me to my newly established finish line?”

That’s the line of thinking we want at this time of year. Not giving up and resigning the year as being over. There’s still plenty of time to achieve great things! Providing we use a magic formula:

SMART.

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Time framed

Ensure your target is in check with those ingredients and you’ll be hard pushed to fail. Here is an example of a potential goal that contains the vital components of SMART –

Many newcomers to exercise and particularly weight training, start on the well renowned Stronglifts 5×5 program.

Let’s say hypothetically, you’ve been running the Stronglifts program for numerous weeks and you’ve always wanted to squat your bodyweight for 5×5, but you’ve never quite got there. You may weigh 185 lbs and the best you’ve managed is 180 lbs for 5×5 and each time you go up to 185 lbs, you fall short of 5 reps in the fourth and fifth set – then you could really knuckle down and set your mind to trying to finally accomplish the 185’s.

Specific – squat 185 lbs for 5×5

Measurable –  5 sets of 5. Set 1: 5 reps, 2: 5 reps, 3: 5 reps, 4: 4 reps and set 5: 3 reps (22 total reps, 3 reps shy of the goal – decrease this number!)

Attainable – current working weight: 180 lbs, goal = 185 lbs. Only a 5 lb increase.

Realistic – 4 weeks of focused work across 3 squat workouts per week is plenty of time to promote gradual progress.

Time framed – by December 25th, we know when we must hit our goal by.

Just an example. Again, this can be applied to anyone or anything. But you must set goals that are realistic. 

If you go too far out, you’ll just back yourself into a prison-like corner that you’ll not be able to emerge victorious from. Set a few goals that are just above your current achievements, standards or levels.

Limit the amount of targets you set………..

The more goals you draw up, the harder it will be to harness the necessary focus to actually achieve them. I’d recommend keeping it to a maximum of 3 specific goals. Now write them down and keep them in a place you can constantly see them. This will ensure they’re ever present in your mind.

So from now until Christmas, we have less than a month. What is possible in such a timespan? 

The answer is yours. 

Please feel free to get some blood in the game and leave a comment down below, I’d love to know what everyone would love to achieve! This will also add some accountability to your quest.

The more people you tell your ambitions to, the more people you risk disappointing.

Start now, what do you want to do before the 25th of December?